“Battling an epidemic of opiate addiction, U.S. drug treatment facilities have made progress with methadone. A daily dose of at least 60 milligrams of methadone is recommended to achieve therapeutic effects and has been associated with improvements that include significant decreases in heroin use, in relapse rates, and in HIV incidence.

Some patients of “opiate agonist treatment” facilities, however, receive less than 60 milligrams per day. A team of researchers led by a Johns Hopkins University expert on health care organizations examined differences in methadone dose levels and the role that program directors may play in accounting for these variations. For a study recently published in Health Services Research, the team discovered that, overall, the proportion of patients getting lower than the recommended daily dose of methadone for opiate addiction has declined in recent years. However, facilities run by African-American directors were more likely to provide low methadone doses than facilities run by managers of other races and ethnicities.”